News and discussions on afganistan

KABUL - The Afghan government will take part in a U.S. strategic review of the war in Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai said Sunday in a sign of increased cooperation at a time of strained relations.

Karzai recently sent President Barack Obama a letter with a proposal that Afghanistan join a war review currently under way.

The U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, said at a joint news conference that Obama had "welcomed the suggestion."

Karzai said his foreign minister, Dadfar Rangin Spanta, would head the delegation. The U.S. has several reviews of the situation in Afghanistan under way, and it was not immediately clear which one Afghan officials would take part in.

The U.S. is studying the situation in Afghanistan at a time of spiraling violence. Taliban attacks have spiked the last three years, and militants have swept up wide areas of countryside that the Afghan government has not been able to control.

Obama has said the U.S. will increase its focus on Afghanistan and draw down forces in Iraq under his watch. The U.S. is contemplating sending up to 30,000 more troops to bolster the 33,000 already in Afghanistan.

Karzai told the news conference he was "grateful" for an agreement announced Thursday between Afghanistan and the U.S. military that Afghan forces would take on a greater role in the planning and execution of missions with the aim of reducing civilian casualties.

He said he hoped the agreement would "reduce civilian casualties and prevent nighttime raids." Overnight raids by elite U.S. Special Operations Forces cause many of the civilian deaths that Karzai has repeatedly denounced, but the agreement made no mention that such targeted missions would end.

In recent weeks, Karzai has publicly pressed the U.S. to use Afghan troops on nighttime raids to prevent civilian casualties, criticism that has added to recent tensions in the U.S.-Afghan relationship.

The Afghan president said in an interview Friday that he has not yet spoken with Obama over the phone since the U.S. president's inauguration, a clear sign that Karzai no longer enjoys the favored status he held with former President George W. Bush.

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama, in his first major military decision as commander-in-chief, has ordered 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan to
tackle an intensifying insurgency, the White House said on Tuesday.

But in an interview with Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), Obama also said military means alone would not solve the problem.

US officials have said Washington and its allies are not winning in Afghanistan, more than seven years after toppling the Taliban for giving sanctuary to al-Qaida leaders responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States in 2001.

The extra 17,000 troops will increase the US military presence in Afghanistan by more than 40 per cent.

"This increase is necessary to stabilize a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, which has not received the strategic attention, direction and resources it urgently requires," Obama said in a statement.

But in an interview with CBC Telvision ahead of a visit to Canada, Obama said: "I'm absolutely convinced that you cannot solve the problem of Afghanistan, the Taliban, the spread of extremism in that region, solely through military means.

"We're going to have use diplomacy, we're going to have to use development, and my hope is that in conversations that I have with (Canadian) Prime Minister (Stephen) Harper that he and I end up seeing the importance of a comprehensive strategy."

The new forces will include a Marine expeditionary brigade of some 8,000 troops and an Army brigade of 4,000 soldiers equipped with Stryker armored vehicles, the Pentagon said.

"The decision was communicated to the Pentagon yesterday. The orders were signed today," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters traveling with Obama in Denver.

The extra forces will go to southern Afghanistan, where US and NATO troops have struggled to hold territory against an increasingly bold Taliban insurgency.

full article here:-http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/US/Obama-orders-17000-more-troops-in-Afghanistan/articleshow/msid-4146921,curpg-2.cms

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan is turning a new page in its relations with the United States, the president's spokesman said on Wednesday, as U.S. President Barack Obama ordered 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan to battle insurgents.

Obama, in his first major military decision as commander-in-chief, said the troop increase was "necessary to stabilise a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan", but warned military means alone would not solve the problem.

Obama spoke to Afghan President Hamid Karzai overnight for the first time since the U.S. president took office nearly a month ago.

Ties between Kabul and Washington have been strained since Obama's inauguration, with the new administration questioning Karzai's ability to govern effectively and the Afghan president hitting back at the killing of civilians by foreign troops.

But after a telephone conversation overnight, Karzai's spokesman said: "We have opened a new page."

"Mr. Obama spoke with the president about various issues including steps for improving security in the region, equipment and training of the national army, further strengthening of bilateral relations, and the increase of forces was also discussed," said presidential spokesman Humayun Hamidzada.

The extra 17,000 troops will take U.S. numbers to around 55,000. U.S. troops in Afghanistan have already steadily risen from around 30,000 at the beginning of this year to 38,000 now under orders signed by the Bush administration.

Some 30,000 troops from 40 other mostly NATO countries are also in Afghanistan and Washington is expected to demand its allies also boost their contributions.

The new U.S. forces will include an expeditionary brigade of some 8,000 Marines and an Army brigade of 4,000 soldiers.

HIGH RISKS

Most of the new deployment will be sent to southern Afghanistan in an attempt to break the stalemate between mostly British, Canadian and Dutch troops there and Taliban insurgents.

"It has been decided they will be deployed on the basis of understanding and consultation with government authorities in insecure areas in the south and east where there is the need for additional forces," said spokesman Zaher Murad.

The U.S. troops would be deployed, he said, "in areas where there are high risks".

More than seven years after U.S.-led troops toppled the Taliban for harbouring al Qaeda leaders behind the Sept. 11 attacks, U.S. officials admit the United States and its allies are not winning in Afghanistan.

Obama said Afghanistan had "not received the strategic attention, direction and resources it urgently requires". The U.S. president pledged to also use the weapons of diplomacy and development to help end the Taliban insurgency.

Karzai is to go to Pakistan in the coming days, his spokesman said, in an attempt to consolidate improving relations between the two neighbours and U.S. allies that are often at odds over Afghan accusations of secret Pakistani backing for the Taliban.

Obama appointed Richard Holbrooke as special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan to try to bring the two sides together and convince Pakistan its biggest existential threat now comes from Taliban militants operating along the Afghan border, rather than from long-standing rival India.

U.S. budget insanity means that the air power roadmap will have a high risk of becoming strategically weak. Many that don't have the foresight, think that future threats can be managed. Go ahead. Roll the dice.

The problem with this thinking is that man has always been bad about predicting the future. Worse with a downturn in the world economy, threat prediction becomes even more iffy. The best thing one can be is prepared.

The air power roadmap for the U.S. looks pretty dim in the coming years. The F-35 is not an air domination machine and add to that, if it falters in production for the reasons of poor management or U.S. budget uncertainty, there is no plan B.

Twenty years from now there will be places the U.S. can not go. Want to put up a few no-fly zones and keep everything else covered? Good luck. Look again at the chart above and then start scratching out F-35 numbers or even eliminating them and look at the chart again.

Investigators looking into the July 2008 crash of a Barksdale Air Force Base B-52 off of Guam think that a stabilizer malfunction is to blame. The aircraft could not level out properly after a dive. Six aircrew were lost.

Based on flight simulations, the investigative team determined the flight was normal until the jet turned left and began to descend about 33 miles west of Guam.

As the 48-year-old bomber dove toward the Pacific at a speed of more than 240 mph, the stabilizers suddenly unhinged, putting the jet into a dive with the nose pointed down 30 degrees and more.

One of the pilots likely tried to level the stabilizers manually using a control wheel in the cockpit that moves the stabilizer 1 degree every two to three seconds, the report said. However, because the plane was already low, there wasn’t enough time to level the stabilizers.

At least three crew members tried to bail out seconds before the plane hit the water, but the plane’s speed, altitude and angle already were past the point where they could survive the ejection.

What complicates things is that B-52s don't carry flight data recorders. Also for the radar nav and radar bombardier crew members on the lower deck, downward ejection is the only option.

Washington: On a day when the White House has confirmed that president Barack Obama has signed an executive order increasing the strength of US forces in Afghanistan by almost 50 per cent, or 17,000, comes a warning from an ex-president that should the newly sworn-in president fall into the same historical trap as the British and the Russians in the past, then Afghanistan could well become his 'Vietnam.' However, ex-president Bill Clinton, in an interview with TV channel CNN, stressed that this was unlikely to happen.

"If President Obama were to do what the British tried to do in the 19th century and literally control the country, or what the Russians did into the 1980s, trying to, have a puppet government and then send the whole Russian Army in there to fight, it could become Vietnam," Clinton told Larry King of the CNN in an interview.

"But I don't expect that to happen," Clinton said when asked if Afghanistan has the potential to become Obama's Vietnam. "In theory, it could happen. But I don't think so. I think what they mean is that Afghanistan has often been a sinkhole for other country's aspirations, that it is big, tough terrain, rugged people and impossible to control the borders," he said.

"He's (Obama) got perhaps our smartest General, Gen Petraeus, and our most successful diplomat in the modern era, Dick (Richard) Holbrooke, working together to craft a military and diplomatic strategy, strongly supported by (Secretary of State) Hillary (Clinton) and Secretary (of Defence Robert) Gates," Clinton said.

The ANAAC is currently focused on developing its air transport capability. For operational and strategic transportation support, the ANAAC is adding fixed-wing transport for capability to transfer troops and supplies across the country. For tactical support, the ANAAC is adding helicopter transport for infantry deployments. A specific emphasis is in providing each commando battalion with a four-helicopter detachment to allow air mobility for tactical and quick response force operations. Additionally, the ANAAC is providing helicopter medical evacuation support plus fixed- and rotary-wing VIP transport.

The ANAAC’s organization development is focused on pilot training, maintenance training, and construction of facilities. At least 301 pilots have been trained. In 2008, 46 pilot candidates were selected from the National Military Academy of Afghanistan and from current Afghan National Army members. In 2009, these pilot candidates will begin two years of training in the US, Canada, and India.

ANAAC personnel first complete 16 weeks of basic training at the Kabul Military Training Center before transfer to the Kabul Air Corps Training Center (KACTC) for aviation training. KACTC started its first class in maintenance support skills training on April 5, 2008. As of December 2008, 357 students were in training at KACTC.

The Kabul ANAAC Headquarters, Joint Aviation Facility (maintenance), and Air Corps Training Center faculties have been constructed. A facility at Kandahar Airfield is currently under construction.

Operations

The capacity and capabilities of the ANAAC have continued to improve as the service gains experience executing re-supply missions, troop movements, and humanitarian assistance operations. The ANAAC now operates from Kabul, Gardez, Jalabad, Herat and Kandahar airfields. The first MI-17 presidential transport mission was flown on Oct. 28, 2008.

From published information, the force structure of the Afghan National Army Air Corps can be inferred. The current plan is to complete this structure by the end of 2015. However, with the acceleration of Afghan National Army development recently approved, it is likely that ANAAC development will also be accelerated.

• 3 transport helicopters.
There is also an unidentified detachment, whose purpose and composition are currently unknown.

The ANAAC is a work-in-progress that continues to develop and improve. In 2007, NATO forces flew 90 percent of the missions in support of Afghan Army. Today, the Afghan National Army Air Corps flies 90 percent of its own missions.

February 24, 2009: One of the most critical items required to run the U.S. and NATO campaign in Afghanistan is jet fuel. Some 30,000 tons a month has to be brought in. That's over 50 trucks a day going through the Khyber pass carrying just jet fuel. These vehicles supply not just military needs, but also civil aviation. In fact, most of the fuel goes to power non-combat aircraft (military and commercial transports). Nearly as many trucks carry other types of fuel (gasoline, diesel).
There are four Pakistani fuel companies that supply most of this fuel, and it's a very lucrative business. Heavy security for the fuel trucks, as well as bribes (for bandits and Taliban) insure that attacks are minimal. Meanwhile, NATO and the U.S. are starting to bring in fuel via the Russian railroads (which end at a rail yard in northern Afghanistan and still have to be trucked south).
:vehicle_plane:

February 25, 2009: Seven years ago, as the post-Taliban Afghan government began planning their new armed forces, it was believed that the air force would probably consist of a few dozen transports and armed trainer aircraft, plus a few dozen transport helicopters (some of then armed). Russia would be a likely donor (or seller, at attractive prices) of the equipment as the Afghans have been using Russian air force equipment for more than 30 years. Eventually, Afghanistan would want jet fighters, but foreign aid donors would resist spending any money on these. Russia could donate some older combat aircraft (currently in storage and wasting away anyway), but even the Afghan government would probably prefer to use the native pilots they have for transports and helicopters, which would be of more use in the next few years.
The original plan has been working out. The Afghan Air Force (officially the ANAAC, or Afghan National Army Air Corps) will, by 2015, have 7,400 troops and 127 aircraft. These will include 61 helicopters (Mi-17 transports and nine Mi-35 gunships), 28 transports (20 G.222s, 6 AN-32s and 2 AN-26s). The remaining aircraft are single engine trainers, some of them used for ground attack. The air force has a pilot training program, which has produced 301 graduate so far, and currently has 46 men undergoing training overseas and in Afghanistan. The G.222s will begin deliveries this year. About half the helicopters are already in service, as well as the An-32s and An-26s.

Currently, the Afghan air force is flying 90 percent of the missions required by the Afghan armed forces. That amounts to about 260 sorties a month, moving 3,800 passengers and about 35 tons of cargo. There are also about 32 medevac missions a month. This is a huge jump since early 2007, when there were only 20 active aircraft and about 4,000 personnel. The Afghans still have a lot of work to do in recruiting and training Afghans to do all the maintenance work, but they have demonstrated that they can make what they have, work.

LONDON — Calling the border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan “the crucible for global terrorism,” Prime Minister Gordon Brown confirmed Wednesday that Britain would send an additional 700 troops to Afghanistan to fight alongside American and NATO forces battling the Taliban.

But he made clear that the deployment — which had been expected and will raise Britain’s commitment to 9,000 from 8,300 — would be intended primarily to build security around the coming elections in Afghanistan and that the extra forces would be withdrawn by early 2010.

“For Afghanistan, our strategy is to ensure the country is strong enough as a democracy to withstand and overcome the terrorist threat,” he said, unveiling what British officials called a new strategy that resembled the Obama administration’s approach, particularly in treating security issues in Afghanistan and Pakistan as intertwined.

“The greatest international priority is the border areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan,” Mr. Brown told Parliament. “They are the crucible of global terrorism. They are the breeding ground for international terrorists. They are the source of a chain of terror which links the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan to the streets of Britain.”

The British leader visited both countries in recent days.

Britain has close historical and other ties with the region, from military debacles in the 19th century “Great Game” for influence in Afghanistan to the links British counterterrorism officials have traced between militants in Britain and Pakistan.

Mr. Brown said two-thirds of the terrorism plots uncovered in recent years involved clandestine ties to Pakistan.

“Tackling terrorism in and from the borders of Afghanistan and Pakistan drives forward our new set of proposals today,” he said. “Our aim is to divide, isolate and then remove the insurgents, offering to those prepared to renounce violence and accept the Afghan Constitution the prospect of work and security.”

He said Britain wanted to help train the Afghan Army to fight the Taliban and to support development projects in Pakistan to prevent young people from “falling under the sway of violent and extremist ideologies.”

Last month, President Obama announced plans to send extra combat forces and military trainers to Afghanistan as part of a plan that would bring the overall American deployment there to about 60,000, including 26,000 who are under NATO command. Compared to those numbers, the British deployment is modest, particularly since Britain is set to complete a pullback from southern Iraq within months.

Still, Britain is the second largest contributor to the 42-nation, 58,000-member international security force in Afghanistan, according to its Web site. While Washington has been pressing for greater contributions from European countries, Britain argues that its forces are already playing a significant role in the dangerous Helmand Province of southern Afghanistan. According to Britain’s Ministry of Defense more than 150 service members have died in Afghanistan since the American-led invasion that toppled the Taliban in 2001.

Australia plans to add 450 soldiers, increasing its force to about 1,550, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced Wednesday, saying Mr. Obama persuaded him to increase the deployment during discussions last week.

Mr. Brown’s newest proposals, coupling military action and training with a boost in development spending, drew some criticism in Parliament.

Comparing the British plan to President Obama’s resolve to defeat Al Qaeda and the Taliban, David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative opposition, told Parliament on Wednesday: “Isn’t it essential that our strategy is as tightly defined, as hard-headed and as realistic as that?

“We are not in the business of trying to create a new Switzerland in the Hindu Kush — we want to help provide security and deny Al Qaeda those training bases.”

The extra soldiers would take Australia closer to its exit strategy building Afghan security forces until they are able to provide their own security but Mr Rudd could not say when troops would come home.

Australia will send another 100 trainers to embed with Afghan battalions, known as kandaks, increasing its Operational Mentoring and Liaison Teams from one to three.

* Indian premier’s special envoy for Afghanistan says Islamabad has no justification to complain about Indian activity in Kabul
* Lambah claims sanctuaries in Pakistan supporting Taliban, Al Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Tayyaba

Daily Times Monitor
Sunday, May 03, 2009

LAHORE: Welcoming the US’ Afghanistan-Pakistan policy, Indian prime minister’s special envoy for Afghanistan Satinder K Lambah has said that the policy’s pledge to dismantle the roots of terrorism in Pakistan is a step in the right direction.

Talking to Pranay Sharma for Outlook India, he said New Delhi had received a very warm welcome upon its arrival in Afghanistan following the Taliban’s fall in 2001. “We weren't sure how we would be received. The warm welcome that we got reinforced in our mind that we were in a friendly country and we had to do something for its reconstruction,” he said, adding that over 80 percent of Afghans saw India as a friend.

Lambah said India was working in all sectors to help Afghans. He said the country was providing 500 scholarships for higher education to Afghan students in Indian universities. “There are another 500 scholarships and training slots for Afghan public servants in Indian professional institutes,” he added. He said the Delaram-Zaranj highway was also a major achievement, adding 11 Indians and 129 Afghans have laid down their lives for the construction of the highway. “In other words, for every mile of this road there is one Indian or Afghan who has sacrificed his life,” he said.

No justification: The special envoy said Pakistan had no justification to complain about Indian activity in Afghanistan, as New Delhi was merely helping the common man. Referring to stability in the war-torn country, he said India’s objectives were that there should be no export of terrorism or extremism, there should be no outside interference and there should be no Taliban involvement in any government. “We wanted the Afghan government to be broad-based; we wanted an integrated police and military force; we were particularly interested in human rights, especially women's, and that there be emphasis on reconstruction. At that time, we were keen that everything should be under the UN umbrella. Eight years later, I'm glad we have played a prominent role in it,” he added.

Still supporting: On outside interference in Afghanistan that has helped the rise of the Taliban, he claimed sanctuaries in Pakistan were still supporting the Taliban, Al Qaeda and the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba. He said India was not opposed to economic assistance to Pakistan, but wanted to ensure that the aid was used for the intended purposes. “This time we are told by the international community, which has been very generous with economic assistance, that such assistance will be matched with performance. Let's see what happens,” he added.

On the possibility of negotiating with the “moderate Taliban”, he said he did not believe any distinction could be made between good and bad Taliban. He said that while India was not against an inclusive approach to bringing about peace, it should not be used to accommodate those who aspire to destroy peace.

Lambah said New Delhi expected to play a role in Afghanistan’s reconstruction and its future. “All western countries have accepted that without us it will not be possible for them to have a solution in Afghanistan,” he said. However, he added, there was no question of Indian being part of the US policy.

HERAT/WASHINGTON: At least 25-30 Pakistani and Chechen Taliban were among those killed in the US-led airstrikes in Farah province on Monday, western Afghanistan Police spokesman Abdul Rauf Ahmadi said on Wednesday. Teams from the Afghan government, international forces and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) would travel to the area to investigate, he added.

Meanwhile, western Farah Province Governor Rohul Amin said he feared that 100 civilians had been killed. Provincial Police chief Abdul Ghafar Watandar said the death toll could be even higher. If confirmed, those even higher figures could make the incident the single deadliest for Afghan civilians since the campaign to topple the Taliban started in 2001.

President Hamid Karzai sent a joint US-Afghan delegation to investigate the incident, his office said. Provincial Police Chief Watandar said Taliban guerrillas had used civilians as shields, herding them into houses in the villages of Geraani and Ganj Abad, that were then struck by US-led coalition warplanes. The airstrikes killed about 120 civilians and destroyed 17 houses, he said. agencies

Adviser to the Prime Minister on Interior A. Rehman Malik addressing a press
conference with local and foreign journalists in Islamabad. –APP Photo

WASHINGTON: The Heads of Pakistan and Afghanistan interior departments announced Friday a series of steps to improve border security between the two countries including a new a system of providing identification documents to both countries expatriates who habitually cross borders without any papers.

‘This is being done to eliminate the terrorists groups marauding in the two countries without any scrutiny or control,’ they stressed.

Addressing a joint press conference in Washington following series of trilateral and bilateral meetings , Pakistan’s interior minister Rehman Mallik and Afghanistan’s Interior Minister Abdul Hanif Autaf they said that both countries had also accepted a road map to eliminate non-state actors who are involved in killing the civilian population.

Afghan Minister identified four groups which are responsible for playing havoc inside Pakistan and Afghanistan, they are: 1) Afghan Taliban 2) Pakistan Taliban, 3) Central and Asian republics citizens and 4) Al-Qaeda from other various parts of the world.

Pakistan’s interior chief also told reporters that the United States had facilitated both countries in agreeing to extend cooperation against terrorists and other criminals who are undermining the integrity and sovereignty of both countries.

‘We are evolving a common strategy to combat the common enemy in order to eliminate the curse of terrorism,’ said Mallik.

Mr. Mallik announced that both countries would undertake a massive campaign to sensitize population on both sides to accept a identity programme.

He pointed that over 50,000 nationals of both countries cross borders without any identification. There are some 1,000 border control posts on Pakistan side and only 100 on the Afghanistan side.

He said that both countries would create task forces to improve the border control management with the help of the United States.

They also announced the creation of training centers in Pakistan Universities for training Afghan law enforcement officials.

KABUL — Local Taliban commanders threatened Thursday to kill a captured American soldier unless the U.S. military stops operations in two districts of southeastern Afghanistan.

The Taliban claimed last week to be holding the soldier, whom the U.S. military earlier described as possibly being in enemy hands.

Abdullah Jalali, a spokesman for Taliban commander Mawlavi Sangin, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Thursday that the soldier was healthy.

He said the soldier would be killed unless the U.S. stops airstrikes in Ghazni province's Giro district and Paktika province's Khoshamand district. Jalali did not explain why the Taliban chose those areas, noting only that Giro has been heavily bombed.

Neither district is in Helmand province, where Marines are currently conducting the largest U.S. military operation in Afghanistan since the Taliban were toppled from power in 2001.

Jalali said the final decision about the soldier's fate will be made by Taliban leader Mullah Omar.

The U.S. military has said that the soldier was noticed missing during a routine check of the unit on June 30 and was "believed captured."

The Taliban claimed on its Web site on July 6 that it was holding the soldier.

"Five days ago, a drunken American soldier who had come out of his garrison named Malakh was captured by mujahedeen. ... He is still with mujahedeen," said the report. The short Web message did not elaborate on his whereabouts, nor did it provide any proof such as a photo.

The U.S. military has said it intercepted communications in which insurgents talked about holding an American.

The soldier's body armor and weapon were found on the base, and U.S. defense sources say he "just walked off" post with three Afghans after work. They say they have no explanation for why he left the base.

The military has not identified the soldier but say his family has been notified that he is missing. He is serving in an Army infantry unit assigned to a combat outpost, one of a number of smaller bases set up by foreign forces in Afghanistan.

Also Thursday, the governor of Kandahar province announced that six civilians were killed and 14 were wounded in the airstrike on a village in Shawalikot district. His statement said an investigation is ongoing.

Wounded villagers at a hospital in the provincial capital told The Associated Press that attack helicopters started bombarding their homes at about 10:30 p.m. Wednesday. One man said his 3-year-old granddaughter was killed.

U.S. military spokeswoman Lt. Cmdr. Christine Sidenstricker confirmed that the U.S. military conducted operations in the area Wednesday but said she did not yet have details and could not confirm any casualties.

U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who took over last month as the commander of U.S. and NATO forces, has said he wants his troops' first priority to be protecting Afghan civilians, not using massive fire power.

Elsewhere, officials said three police were killed by a suicide car bomber in Nimroz province, and two Afghan army soldiers died in two other attacks in the south. NATO forces said they killed two insurgents in an attack in the east.

The Interior Ministry said an attack on an international military supply convoy sparked a gunbattle that killed at least eight insurgents, two police officers and a private security guard

The widening war in Afghanistan between Taliban militants and American-allied Afghan forces is taking an increasingly heavy toll on civilians, with more than 1,000 killed in the first six months of 2009, up from 818 during the same period in 2008, according to a United Nations report released Friday.

Explosions and suicide attacks carried out by antigovernment forces, including the Taliban, caused the majority of the civilian deaths, killing some 600 civilians during the period, the report said. Of the approximately 300 deaths attributed to pro-government forces, some two-thirds were caused by American airstrikes, the report said.

The main increase in deaths came from the increasingly lethal tactics of the antigovernment insurgents, including the use of improvised explosive devices, suicide attacks and assassinations, the report said. While in 2007, the insurgents were responsible for 46 percent of the civilian deaths in the war, they are now accountable for 60 percent of them. Almost a third of the country is now directly affected by insurgent activity, the report said, and that area is steadily spreading.

The militants attacked schools, construction companies, marketplaces and officials, appearing to “deliberately favor the use of indiscriminate tactics” in populated civilian areas, in violation of the international laws of war, the report said.

The report noted increased efforts by international and American forces in Afghanistan to reduce the number of civilian casualties, such as by creating a special system to track such deaths, and said that the number of civilians inadvertently being shot at checkpoints had been reduced.

The high number of deaths caused by airstrikes, however, as well as reports of excessive force used by joint Afghan and international patrols in search-and-seizure raids, remain sources of concern, the report said.

Afghan civilians are increasingly finding themselves in the center of the deepening operations to rout the Taliban militants. More of the fighting is taking place in civilian areas as the government seeks to quell the insurgency, the report said.

The deaths caused by pro-government operations are leading to “a strong feeling of anger and disappointment among the Afghan general public,” the report warned, adding that they are “undermining support for the continued presence of the international military forces, and the international community generally.”

The force of the explosion just after nightfall shattered windows around the city and sent flames shooting into the sky. So many houses and nearby buildings had collapsed that officials feared the death toll could rise further. At least 66 people were wounded, said Gen Ghulam Ali Wahabat, a police commander in charge of southern Afghanistan.

Afghan officials said the blast appeared to target a Japanese construction company that mostly employs Pakistani engineers. The blast collapsed the company headquarters and destroyed part of a nearby wedding hall, an Associated Press reporter at the scene said.

It wasn't clear why the construction company was targeted.

The AP reporter described the blast as the largest he has heard in nearly eight years of living in Kandahar, the site of several large Taliban attacks in recent years.

This blast destroyed about 40 shops, the AP reporter estimated.

"Once again they've killed children, women, innocent Afghans. They are not human. They are animals. You can see for yourself the destruction of this enemy," said deputy provincial police chief Mohammad Sher Shah.